There is a wide range in the educational qualities and overall quality of interactive storybook apps for tablet computers (ebooks). Minimally, ebooks for young children present illustrations on a screen, accompanied by an oral reading of the text. Today's ebooks can also include animation, zooming in and out, musical scores, sound effects,…

The e-book is raising fundamental questions around the dynamics and habits of reading; the role of books in the academic library; and the role of librarians in addressing new realities of reading and learning. Print and digital texts foster different styles of reading and different ways of thinking and doing research. This paper examines…

School librarians often wonder whether school superintendents and school board members understand and support intellectual freedom for students in K-12 schools. In this article, an administrator and a school board member discuss their thoughts and the actions they took to support access to information in the face of formal challenges to school…

As increasing numbers of students from diverse cultures are entering schools, educators need to include diversity in their teaching to promote diverse perspectives and help students become global citizens. The author offers tips for elementary teachers on using multicultural children's literature in their classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to…

Positively influence comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, and oral language development with read-aloud strategies. The author shares tips for making read-alouds successful.

This paper is about the impact of systematic reading selection used to promote English as foreign language learning in adult students. A qualitative action research methodology was used to carry out this project. Ten class sessions were designed to provide students an opportunity to select texts according to criteria based upon their language…

In his 2016 article, "What Can Readers Read after Graded Readers?" (EJ1098660), Jeff McQuillan provided data to show that there is an adequate amount of reading material that can be read at or above 98% vocabulary coverage to provide sufficient input to acquire most of the word families from the 2,000- to the 9,000-word-family levels.…

The challenges associated with boys and reading are focused on such factors as society's lack of focus on literacy skills, parents failings to inspire reading in boys, and internal motivational factors rather than looking at the environments created for reading in and out of school. In this column, several ideas for helping boys develop a…

Censorship challenges to books in UK public libraries have received renewed attention recently. This study sought to establish the incidence of censorship challenges to books in Scottish public libraries in the years 2005-2009 and the actions taken in response to these challenges. It was found that eight local authorities in Scotland had received…

How should educators go about selecting appropriate editions of Shakespeare's plays for use in political science courses? Shakespeare is turning up on many politics syllabi, but, at times, the editions chosen seem to reflect primarily a concern for price or publisher reputation over pedagogical and scholarly considerations. This article offers an…

This article by Jennie Marston provides a framework to assist you in selecting appropriate picture books to present mathematical content. Jennie demonstrates the framework by applying three specific examples of picture books to the framework along with examples of activities.

The "Kids & Family Reading Report" is a national survey sharing the views of both kids and parents on reading books for fun and the influences that impact kids' reading frequency and attitudes toward reading. "Finding Their Story" is the second installment of the Scholastic "Kids & Family Reading Report™: 7th…

The link between recreational book reading and improved literacy performance is consistently supported by educational research. Increasing engagement in recreational book reading remains imperative for English teachers, though how to best facilitate this in a secondary context is an object of contention, with limited research in this field. The…

The Common Core Curriculum Standards point educators toward rigorous or deep learning so that students will become "college and career ready." College-ready students engage with text in thoughtful ways so that they arrive at insights through interpretation, discussion, and analysis. One reading anchor standard of relevance for school…

We read 48 children's books featuring characters with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to determine which books would be appropriate for use during read-alouds in early childhood classrooms. We conducted a search on Amazon for children's books on ASD published after 2010 and identified 50 books that met the following criteria: (a) the book was a…